


The Nanny

by InchByInch



Category: Homeland
Genre: Advent Calendar, Domestic Fluff, F/M, silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 20:50:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13131927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InchByInch/pseuds/InchByInch
Summary: In this AU, Quinn hides the President-Elect in the trunk of one of the hundreds of cars parked in the hotel garage, while he and Carrie take positions hidden nearby to protect Keane with their guns.  Of course, none of that is necessary, because loyal officers and troops secure the situation in about 15 minutes, and it doesn't take them too much longer to identify the real enemies based on Keane's testimony. With the plot exposed, Franny is immediately returned to Carrie's custody and Quinn is pardoned.One year later, Christmas is approaching.





	The Nanny

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ideal_Flower](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ideal_Flower/gifts).



Quinn woke up just two seconds too late.

Probably four seconds, he kept forgetting that he couldn’t move quickly anymore, and Carrie was in the way, but it wasn’t far from the bed to the door. Two seconds earlier and he would have been able to get there before whoever was picking the lock had a chance to open the door. Now his best play was to wait, pretending to be asleep, but the thought of Franny, lying vulnerable in the next bedroom was killing him. Surely he would have woken if the intruder had visited the child’s bedroom before picking the lock on Carrie’s bedroom door.

All these thoughts flashed through Quinn’s head in the instant between the click of the latch and the moment the door opened. He was tensing to spring, but through half-closed eyes, he saw red curls about three feet above the floor. Franny. He released his breath and opened his eyes. How had the 4-year-old picked the lock? Maybe the door hadn’t really been locked? He thought back to last night.

Carrie had come up behind him while he was washing the dishes. The repetitive movements were supposed to be good occupational therapy for him, so they’d changed the routine. Instead of Quinn reading Franny a story while Carrie loaded the dishwasher, he washed the dishes while she read the story. One thing he learned about being clumsy is that 80% of the time, a dropped glass or a dish doesn’t break. The other 20% of the time you can just clean it up. 

He’d learned a lot of useful things in the past month after he took over from the nanny. Latisha had left to start a nursing internship, so Quinn was like the new nanny. He brought Franny home from daycare early most days. The two of them had lunch together, then he put her down for a nap, followed by a visit to the park or the library before Carrie returned for the evening. In exchange for childcare, Carrie paid for a highly recommended occupational therapist to visit every morning. 

The routine was perfect for Quinn, he seemed to have finally broken through his plateau and was making progress again in therapy. Even better, he felt like he had fallen into a pit of love with Franny. Progress on those two fronts made his relationship with Carrie even more of a priority, and, finally, things were progressing there, too. 

It had started with bumping into each other more: in the kitchen, passing each other in the living room, on the stairs, handing things back and forth, they accidentally brushed shoulders, fingers, just touching. Then cuddling Franny, of course. They each liked being close to her, so naturally, that brought them close to each other, on the couch, on the bus, walking, everywhere in the home really. 

Then, two mornings ago, Carrie was sitting in the kitchen drinking her coffee when Quinn came up from the basement. Franny came downstairs at the same time, bouncing with excitement to open one of the last windows on her Advent calendar. The girl hugged and kissed her mom, and then hugged and kissed Quinn. It just felt natural for Carrie and Quinn to greet each other with a hug as well. It felt natural, and very nice, at least to Quinn, and it must have felt nice to Carrie, too, because she held onto him longer than was really appropriate. 

Yesterday morning, Franny wasn’t even around, but Carrie was sitting at the table like she was waiting. 

“Good morning,” she murmured as she rose to embrace him. She kissed his cheek.

“Good morning,” he replied, but he didn’t let her go.

She didn’t pull away.

So he leaned closer, slowly enough to give her a chance to turn, but she didn’t. Instead, she suddenly leaned in again, and they kissed, slow and deliberate. Then Franny did come in and the moment passed. The second to the last window on the advent calendar was opened and breakfast proceeded like it normally did, except everything was different. Every brush and accidental touch seemed to linger. Every time they met each other’s eyes, sharing their affection for Franny’s adorable comments, affection for each other was apparent as well. 

Later, when Carrie and Franny left for the day, Franny kissed Quinn goodbye, just like always, and then Carrie kissed him, too, on the cheek, really, but half on his lips. So natural, so normal, and at the same time so exciting, so promising. She locked eyes with him, and then they were gone, leaving him all day to think.

He didn’t know what to think. On the one hand, there was no misinterpreting those kisses, but he couldn’t quite believe it. Throughout the different activities of the day, his body seemed to hum. He imagined every disappointing way things could go, how he could lose not only Carrie but Franny as well. But what if he didn’t lose them, what if… It was a long day.

But a busy one. In addition to therapy he had a check-up with his neurologist, then grocery shopping and music class with Franny. All the kids were crazy with excitement about Christmas. Carrie was waiting for them with dinner when they got home, but this time the looks and touches didn’t seem so lingering and meaningful, just… awkward. Maybe they were both nervous, or maybe it was just him and she wasn’t feeling anything at all. Maybe he had just confused himself by dreaming those earlier kisses. That’s where Quinn’s mind was running as he washed the dishes when she came up behind him and slid her hands around his waist and pressed the side of her face into his back. 

“Carrie.” He breathed her name like a sigh of relief, but she didn’t speak and didn’t move, just held him tight. 

He dried his hands while she still clung to him, then he turned around in her arms, brushed his fingers through her hair and trailed them down the side of her face, finally lifting her chin up to look at him. 

“Franny fell asleep.”

Quinn’s face must have shown surprise and confusion at that statement. Carrie buried her face in his chest again. “I’m sorry. I’m fucking this up! I don’t know what to do… I just, I just want you so much, and I’m so afraid of… of ruining everything.” Her words were muffled.

Swing her into your arms, carry her to bed, and give her an orgasm so sweet and so powerful she won’t ever want you to leave. That was Quinn’s instinct. But, of course, he couldn’t do that. And that was the problem, right? The things he couldn’t do.

As he stood there with his arms wrapped around her tight, all his thoughts from the day started to fall into place. God, just holding her this close gave him such a sense of being… himself again. He nodded into her hair, inhaled her sent and kissed her head. He felt confident, and even at peace with the fact he might be about to lose everything.

“Carrie, I’m different. You sh-should be afraid; my brain is not… I’ll never be like I was…” She looked up and interrupted him.

“I don’t want you like you were. I want this you. I do, Quinn, I know you’re different, but you’re getting better, I just don’t know when…”

“I may never get better than I am now, Carrie.”

“I don’t care. I mean it. I just… I don’t want to overwhelm you. I don’t want to start things off when you aren’t in a position…”

“You aren’t. You can’t...” He breathed in through her hair and she reached up and tugged his shirt down so that the open collar exposed his chest and her lips pressed against his bare skin; he felt the tickle of her gasping breaths through his whole body. His left hand drifted down her back and then under the edge of her shirt, large fingers spreading across her skin at the small of her back and anchoring her closer. They tilted their faces towards each other and their kiss was thorough, with none of the hesitations in their words. 

Quinn broke it off. “Carrie, I want…” He trailed off, unsure how to ask without sounding like a dick. He’d always detested guys who tried to seem more masculine with false demonstrations of dominance, but he needed to show Carrie she was not his mother or his nurse. 

“We will work out how this goes…just… just promise me you won’t get angry and retreat if things don’t…” 

He huffed a laugh. “I’m sure I’ll get angry. But I won’t leave you, Carrie. I won’t give up. I’ll try, we’ll find a way…” She stopped his words with an aggressive kiss, pushing him back against the sink and he responded in kind, pushing back against her with enough force to lift her up onto the opposite counter and with the same movement he pulled her shirt off overhead so that his face was level with her naked breasts. 

She moved to pull him closer, but he stopped her hand and stood frozen for several seconds, looking at her and processing until she slowly pushed his arm out of the way and grabbed at his shirt. Then he abruptly seemed to wake up. He pulled his own shirt over the top of his head brought Carrie close so that their naked chests were pressed up against each other as his hand slid down her backside under the waist of her yoga pants and inside her underwear, caressing her skin and pulling her body so that she pressed up against his erection. 

“Upstairs,” she gasped. “Let’s go upstairs.”

\-----

Later, they were still holding each other, when Carrie suddenly got up and moved to her adjoining bathroom. As she walked back towards the bed, Quinn sat up. 

“I should go,” he said.

“No. Stay. Please. I’ll go down and get your meds.” She downed the handful of pills she was holding in one swallow without any water. 

“I already took them.” He didn’t take his eyes off her naked body.

“Then you can just stay.” She walked to the door and jiggled the knob to show it was locked. “See? We’re fine.” She came back and sat on the bed next to him. “Please?” It was a whisper.

For an answer he pulled her down next to him, cuddling her close and kissing her so that she giggled and squirmed. They both grinned at each other as they settled in, holding hands and intertwining their legs. 

______

So, the door had definitely been locked. He knew he would have wakened if Carrie had left the room in the night. And he had heard the lock springing open. Franny had picked the lock.

“Peter!” Her face lit up with delight to see him in her mother’s bed. “It's Christmas Eve. Did you and Mommy have a sleepover?”

“Good morning, Sunshine. Carrie, look who’s here to join us.”

“Mommy doesn’t wake up right away. You have to really shake her.” Franny padded over and reached up for her mom’s arm. “Sometimes I yell right in her face—”

“No, no, don’t wake her up, then.” Quinn chuckled. “We’ll let her sleep, OK?”

“OK. But it’s morning. Are you going to get me breakfast?”

“I can. First, hand me those pants on the floor, there.”

Franny did as he asked and he slid them on awkwardly under the covers before she could climb onto the bed, over her sleeping mother, and then scramble into his arms on top of the covers. “How did you learn how to open that door, Sweetheart?” 

“I asked Siri once, and she showed me a YouTube video. It’s easy, you just poke a paper clip into a little hole!”

“I guess you can learn anything from YouTube.”

“Yes, Mommy learned to make my birthday cake on YouTube. She made a pinata treasure cake! It was so cool.”

“I remember. Wh-why? What were you… ”

“Sometimes I like to see what she has in her closet room upstairs.”

“Hmm. Me, too. I’ll teach you how to search for hidden keys.” 

“Is Mommy going to have a baby now?” Franny sat back on Quinn’s legs. She was just as calm and matter-of-fact as she had been the moment before, but suddenly Quinn's mind was reeling at her question. For multiple reasons.

“Uumm… well… that’s a good question. Why do you ask that?” Old evasion training sometimes kicked back in when he least expected it.

“I know where babies come from.”

“You do?”

“When grown-ups who love each other sleep in bed together with their clothes off. Mommy told me and I have a book about it. That’s what you did last night, right?”

“Yes.” Quinn normally didn't need much reason to lie, but this seemed like an important moment to be truthful with the child. Since she had figured it out, she obviously was ready for it.

“So you and Mommy are in love?”

“… Franny, you know I love your mommy and you both, right?”

“Yes... If Mommy has a baby, will you be the baby’s daddy?”

Quinn frowned. He knew a Mathison trick question when he heard one. “… Franny, if Mommy has a baby, I will be the baby’s biological father, but being a _daddy_ means more than that. A daddy does things like helping with school, and meals, and walking a kid home, and taking a kid to the park…”

“You do all those things for me!”

“That's right. If Mommy had another baby, I would t-try to love the baby as much as I love you, I'm sure we would all love the baby just as much! But I would never love any child m-more. Never Franny. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.” She looked thoughtful. “Peter, are you my daddy?”

“I think it takes more time than we have had together, for it to be real, but I hope I will be. Your mom and I should talk about that, and you, too. What do you want?”

“I think we should be a real family.”

“You and Mommy ARE a real family, just the two of you.”

“Yeah, but if all three of us love each other, then we should all be a family together. Isn’t that right? You can be the daddy and we can have a sister, too.”

“Ahhh…. Time to wake up your mother, Miss Smarty Pants. You do it.”


End file.
